Forget about facial ticks, eye movement, and changes in the voice register, because new research has found a better way to spot a liar.
After studying 1,000 airport passengers, the results suggest that asking more detailed questions will throw a liar off, as they're more likely to trip up if you ask them unexpected questions.
Asking open questions force the liar to expand on their lies, so asking someone how they get to work, what bus do they take, or what route that bus takes make the person give details they wouldn't have been expecting, thus forcing them to improve, which increases their likely of stumbling through an answer.
This techniques allowed the researchers to find the person they were looking for, which was 1-in-1000, 70% of the time. That's 20 times more effective than looking for the physical signs of lying.
Tom Ormerod of the University of Sussex says ‘there are no consistent signs that always arise alongside deception,’
‘I giggle nervously, others become more serious, some make eye contact, some avoid it.’
Via Metro